David Hobby wrote: > Trent Shipley wrote: > .... >>> Hi. It's interesting. I wonder about the last bit, >>> though. How does one tell whether or not a profession >>> is "essential"? (I can certainly name some that I feel >>> are NOT essential, but let's get beyond our personal biases.) >>> >>> One answer may be "a profession is essential as long as >>> people in it manage to find work". Markets certainly >>> don't solve everything, but may be giving information >>> about the relative importance of various kinds of work. : ) >>> >>> ---David >> >> >> Taxpayers tend to see the Universities exclusive mission as training >> (not educating) their kids to get a certificate that will let the kid be >> middle class. In short we pay taxes for undergraduate education NOT >> research or grad school. I imagined the state department of education >> defining some professional level degrees like Medicine, Master of >> Nursing, M.Ed. and D.Ed., Masters of Engineering, MSW as essential for >> Arizona. Others, like Law, MFA, or a PhD in Astronomy would be elective >> and unsubsidized. Some, notably the profitable hard sciences, like >> geology, biology, or chemistry, might qualify for partial subsidy. > > Trent-- > > So you're not big on the "wisdom of the market"? > Your post did mention libertarians a bit, but I > was unclear where you stood. Why should "profitable" > hard sciences need a subsidy? I'd hope that the > state money would go towards fields that we worthwhile > yet underfunded. : )
The post is divided into two parts. The top part is the actual topic of the post. The main text. The part about vouchers and so on is an appendix provided as background. Now a pure market fundamentalist libertarian would be against subsidizing legislation. So even by brooking vouchers we are in the realm of libertarian lite. However, the voucher proposal is a HUGE libertarian increment over the system of funding higher education common in all states. It would make undergraduates true consumers. They could study at a community college, for-profit institution, religious institution, or state university as long as it was approved as a bona fide higher education program by the Department of Education. The student could study English lit or electrical engineering, or for that matter auto mechanics or go to beauty school. Power to the individual, student to customer. How's that for libertarian morality? Restricting grad school is a political sop. Voters really do tend to see the state universities as their to credential their kids into middle classdom. Oh, and tack a medical school on the side. What I would really like to see is a matching funds market in grants and loans so that young undergrads don't do the stupid thing I did and study history, but are expediently philistine and study business. The idea is that if Intel put in 1% for EE, the government matches it 99%. Oh look! No money for fine arts. Maybe you should major in nursing, hospitals put up money so the nursing grants would be funded. > My daughter is in law school, and is paying for it > with a pile of student loans. It's reasonable that > she not be subsidized, since she'll (hopefully) wind > up making enough to pay back the loans. > > We're in New York state, which has fairly high barriers > to entering K-12 teaching. The teachers who come to my > school to get the Master's they need for permanent > certification tend to be making enough money that > they don't need subsidies. > > As for subsidizing a Masters in Social Work, why not > just pay social workers a bit more? > > ---David > > > _______________________________________________ > http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com > > > > _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
